More candid life-long Democrats in the critical swing state of Ohio admit that they won't vote for Obama on racial grounds, writes SABRINA TAVERNISE
THIS IS the land of die-hard Democrats – mill workers, coal miners and union members. They have voted party line for generations, forming a reliable constituency for just about any Democrat who decides to run for office.
But when it comes to President Barack Obama, a small part of this constituency balks. “Certain precincts in this county are not going to vote for Obama,” said John Corrigan, clerk of courts for Jefferson County, who was drinking coffee in a furniture shop downtown one morning last week with a small group of friends, retired judges and civil servants. “I don’t want to say it, but we all know why.”
A retired state employee, Jason Foreman, interjected, “I’ll say it: it’s because he’s black.”
For nearly 3½ years, a black family has occupied the White House and, much of the time, what has been most remarkable about that fact is how unremarkable it has become to the country. While Obama will always be known to the history books as the country’s first black president, his mixed-race heritage has only rarely surfaced in visible and explicit ways amid the tumult of a deep recession, two wars and shifting political currents.
But as Obama braces for what looks to be a close re-election battle, race remains a powerful factor among a small minority of voters – especially, research suggests, those in economically distressed regions with high proportions of white working-class residents, like this.
Obama barely won this county in 2008 – 48.9 per cent to John McCain’s 48.7 per cent.
Four years earlier, John Kerry had an easier time here, winning 52.3 per cent to 47.2 per cent over George W Bush.
Given Ohio’s critical importance as a swing state, that will most likely be won or lost by the narrowest of margins.
The fact that Obama’s race is a deal-breaker for even a small number of otherwise loyal Democrats could have implications for the final results.
Researchers have long struggled to quantify racial bias in electoral politics but have been hobbled by their reliance on surveys, a forum in which respondents rarely admit to prejudice. In 50 interviews in this county over three days last week, five people raised race directly as a reason they would not vote for Obama. In those conversations, voters were not asked specifically about race but about their views on the candidates generally. Those who raised the issue did so of their own accord.
“I’ll just come right out and say it: he was elected because of his race,” said Sara Reese, a bank employee who said she voted for Ralph Nader in 2008 even though she usually votes Democrat.
Did her father, a staunch Democrat and retired mill worker, vote for Obama? “I don’t think he could do it,” she said.
The main quarrels Democratic voters here have with Obama have nothing to do with race. They include his opposition to the Keystone pipeline, an environmental stance they say will harm this area, whose backbone, the Ohio River, is lined with metal mills and coal mines.
And the economy, on the rise nationally, is still stuck here. About one in three residents in Steubenville live in poverty, double the national rate. Shale gas, which has begun to bring profits to some counties in Ohio, has yet to take off here, and downtown is a grid of empty storefronts behind dusty glass.
“The big word was ‘change,’ but there’s not been much of that,” said Christopher Brown, a union leader in Steubenville, who said more than 200 of his members are still out of work. “Members are saying, ‘What has President Obama done for us?”’
As for race, he said, “It’s not on the front table, it’s in the back seat.” Just how far back is a question no one can definitively answer.“He’s everything they hate,” said Stephanie Montgomery, who is black and a graduate of Franciscan University in Steubenville, referring to ultra-conservatives. “An affirmative-action baby. Got the Nobel Prize without deserving it.”
Many who raised race as a concern cast Obama as a flawed candidate carried to victory by blacks voting for the first time. Others expressed concerns indirectly, through suspicions about Obama’s background and questions about his faith.
“He was like, ‘Here I am, I’m black and I’m proud’,” said Lesia Felsoci, a bank employee. “To me, he didn’t have a platform. Black people voted him in, that’s why he won. It was black ignorance.”
Louis Tripodi, a baker in Steubenville who voted for Obama, blames talk radio and Republican rhetoric for encouraging such attitudes. “[They said] ‘He’s a Muslim, he’s a socialist, he’s not born in this country’,” he said. “It’s got a lot to do with race.”
There was increased voter turnout among blacks in 2008, and some younger voters said it was part of why they voted for him. But now that history has been made, it is less of a pull.
“It was kind of like a bandwagon that a lot of young people jumped on because it was history,” said Dee Kirkland, a 22-year-old working in a pizza shop. “It was a fad to like him,” she said, adding that “race shouldn’t hinder you, but it also shouldn’t help you”.
Obama still has a number of enthusiastic supporters here. Diane Woods, the owner of Pee Dee’s Brunch and Bar, a diner in downtown Steubenville, described him as “regal, and presidential”, and said she would vote for him again because “when he talks, it makes sense to me”.
The fact that race came up at all in 2008 “really showed how divided we still are”, she said, cooking eggs one grey morning last week. “Blacks came out to vote for the first time because he was black, and you had all these whites saying, ‘Oh, there’s another vote from some drug addict’.”
Corrigan, who supports Obama, said he believed that the president would ultimately win this mostly Democratic county but that it would be very close, a prediction he said was underscored by a recent flurry of Republican visits. Rick Santorum came here twice during his campaign, and John RKasich, a Republican, gave his annual address here this winter.
“It’s going to be a nail-biter,” said Brown, the union official.
New York Times